Gender Bending With Brian Charles Rooney

Theatergoers are accustomed to seeing roles written
for one gender performed by members of the other
gender. This dates back at least until Elizabethan
times when all of Shakespeare's women were performed
by men-more correctly, younger men. Today's audiences
might find it hard to believe that the original
interpreters of such famous female roles as Juliet,
Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra and Ophelia were male, but
such was the case in Elizabethan Theater because the
morality of the day felt it was "improper" for women
to be performing in front of crowds. In more
recent times theatergoers have become used to
seeing Peter Pan played by the likes of Jean Arthur,
Mary Martin, Cathy Rigby and Sandy Duncan. They have
also risen from their seats and applauded Harvey
Fierstein when he portrayed Edna Turnblad in
HAIRSPRAY; a feat that saw him awarded the Tony Award
for "Best Actor in a Musical" in 2003. So it should
come as no surprise to anyone with a background in the
arts to learn that the current revival of Brecht and
Weill's THE THREEPENNY OPERA has the role of Lucy
Brown performed by a young man. Not just any young
man, mind you, but Brian Charles Rooney, an actor with
a four octave range that reaches a Soprano High A in
"Lucy's Aria". In this daring interpretation of the
show, Lucy Brown is actually a male-who might also
live as a female as the whim strikes the character.

Meeting Brian Charles Rooney in the empty Studio 54 is
a disarming experience. A good-looking fellow, he
arrives at the theater a few minutes late because of
problems with his subway connections. Dressed
casually in a green golf shirt, jeans and sneakers, he
sat down in one of the theater seats, sipped from a
bottle of vitamin water, made himself comfortable and
conversed happily for over an hour in a discourse that
covered a variety of topics; especially Scott
Elliot's controversial production of THE THREEPENNY
OPERA that he is featured in.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Rooney's mother was a
Ford model. His first visit to Broadway was as a
guest of his grandparents. They took him to see the
musical MERLIN which starred illusionist Doug Henning
and Chita Rivera. It also featured Nathan Lane in a
supporting role. "I remember bits of the show,
especially Chita's performance. She was so powerful
and commanding. However, the Mark Hellinger Theater
was the real star to me. Just the whole experience of
being there, in a Broadway theater, was amazing."
Still, the youngster didn't get to the theater again
for quite some time. "When you're growing up in New
Jersey, the city is so close and yet so far away!
Suburban families, for the most part, see New York
City as a far away, and sometimes dangerous place.
The next show I saw was PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, when I
was in high school. I loved it and I still do; the
overture gave me chills. I know a lot of people hate
PHANTOM, but ironically that show fueled the
excitement and love I had for live theater." Actually
Rooney really wanted to be a doctor. "I went to Duke
University and knew that I would either double major
in Psychology and Drama, or just minor in Drama. I
didn't think I would actually be able to pursue
theater arts as a career. I had been pressured to be
a doctor my whole life. I also didn't have any
training. I had done a few plays in high school, but
I never sang in a choir or in a musical. When I got
to Duke, I discovered that the program was holding
auditions for Sondheim's MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG. I'd
always sung along with the radio and CDs in the
privacy of my bedroom; but I had never sung a song
with piano accompaniment before, least of all a
Sondheim song. I decided to audition for the show and
was cast as Charlie. Playing that role was a 'baptism
by fire.' I didn't read music, and one of that
character's songs, 'Franklin Shepard, Inc.,' is
probably one of the most difficult in the musical
theatre canon. I learned it and was determined to
perform it better than anyone expected me to. That
determination grew quite heartily throughout college.
I kept auditioning for shows, and fell more and more
in love with performing; but I also grew more
ambitious."

Initially Rooney went into these productions with the
typical attitude of getting another lead role, but he
had an epiphany when he was cast in another Sondheim
show, ASSASSINS in his senior year. "I played Booth,
which vocally explored the lower end of my range. I
remember being onstage during the curtain call one
night and wishing the applause would end. I
wasn't depressed or sad in a conventional way, really,
but the applause meant the show was over, and so was
Booth, for the night. The curtain call was almost
anticlimactic and embarrassing in a way. It was a
strange feeling, but I realized that being an actor
wasn't about all the superficial stuff anymore. It
was about the research and rehearsal, and what I could
create out of that. It was about relating to people
in the audience and telling them a story - knowing
that people were listening and reacting, and hopefully
feeling what the writers intended for them to feel."

The young actor feels truly blessed in the Roundabout
Theater's production of THREEPENNY. "If an unknown
actor is fortunate enough to be cast in a Broadway
show, his role is often somewhat similar to his own
personality and physical appearance- at least visually
- after all, casting directors, producers, and
directors won't take a chance on casting a newbie in a
role that, at face value, might be a stretch. Scott
Elliott is one of those rare directors who has an
almost supernatural instinct about a person. When I
walk in a room, people see an innocent guy, and they
assume I am shy... I don't think he made those
assumptions... he let my work speak for itself.
Now 'Lucy' and I are very different people, but
there's a lot about 'Lucy' that I CAN relate to or
empathize with, quite a bit actually, and that's why
I'm playing him-in this version, Lucy is a 'him.' So
in that sense, I was right for the part, and Scott new
that, bless him! However, I don't live as a
transvestite, nor have I ever performed in drag
before. Obviously being able to sing the material
helped too. Visually, however, Lucy and I are VERY
different, and that's the kind of part that actors beg
for. In this way I'm going backwards and I may have
to fight when it comes to being seen by casting
directors for more traditional roles. Their minds
might go blank and all they will see is Lucy Brown. I
think I will be rather hungry to play something a
little more traditional when THREEPENNY is done... but
then again, perhaps not," he chuckled.

Has playing a role with such a high tessitura affected
Rooney's voice? "No," he says with a chuckle,
"everyone keeps asking me that! I was actually sick
the second week of previews and it didn't affect my
soprano tone and range at all. I do some really high
tenor belting in the ensemble stuff-high C's and
D's-and that was slightly affected, as that tends to
be more athletic singing, but my solo singing was
fine. That was rather a huge relief!" The singer
says that there are times when his range climbs up to
an E, like the note Christine sings in PHANTOM OF THE
OPERA.

Rooney discovered his incredible range when he was in
college. "I would fool around when we were rehearsing
a show and sing along with the sopranos. A friend of
mine suggested that I was a countertenor, but I didn't
know what that was. He directed me to the wife of a
professor of mine, who is a Baroque opera singer. She
had me vocalize and taught me a short aria from
Handel's opera, SUSANNAH. It was a piece that is
normally lowered for countertenors because it was
written for the castrati. Countertenors can't sing it
because it's too high. She told me I had the tone and
ease the castrati would have had without my being a
castrato." It is fairly obvious that Rooney has not
been castrated to enhance his singing talents. "I
think most people would agree that my voice IS rather
odd... but I don't question it, I try to develop it as
best I can. My voice is a gift I was given and it is
my responsibility to take care of it and make the most
of it."

The conversation veered toward the audition that
Rooney gave for THREEPENNY. Did he know he was
auditioning for a female role? "Yeah, I knew that
they were casting it male but they wanted someone who
could sing tenor AND soprano and could play in an
early 20's age range and be convincing either male or
female because they didn't know exactly what they
wanted to do. The director had had an idea of what he
wanted but then that changed so they wanted someone
who could fill in different versions of that idea.
Normally an actor comes to New York and auditions for
everything. Some actors are lucky and they have the
support of a conservatory, in that they are put in a
showcase and given an agent. I didn't have that, so I
did it the old-fashioned way, an exception to the rule
you might say. I didn't have an appointment, so I
went to the Equity open call. I sang 'I'm a Stranger Here,' which is a Weill song
from the musical ONE TOUCH OF VENUS. I sang it as a
soprano. The casting associates were pokerfaced and
said, 'You sound great, Brian. Thank you.' I left
feeling discouraged.

"I got an e-mail from Jim Carnahan's office two weeks
later asking me to come in for a callback. I went to
that and a few days later had yet another callback for
Scott and the music director, Kevin Stites.
I got the call 20 minutes after I had left. They did
me a HUGE favor in not making me wait and wonder!!"

"I learned to sing from mimicking other singers,"
continues Rooney, "lots of high-singing men, lots of
female belters and lots of sopranos. I was attracted
to those voices, I think, because of my potential to
sound like them. I didn't necessarily know what I was
capable of though. I was attracted to the sounds and
the vibrations those kind of voices create. I'm a
firm believer that the frequency of a person's voice
is what affects the listener. For example, I'll get
onstage and sing something and people will kindly say,
'That was so moving!' or 'I cried' I can't express
how moving it is to hear things like that, BUT, I
don't understand what the difference is between when I
do it and when someone after me does it, other than I
know that I lay my heart bare when I sing for an
audience. But, some singers don't have that effect on
some listeners. There are some pop singers, I think,
who might benefit from this too... they might not have
the greatest voices but they're super-successful and
people like to listen to them. I think there's
something about the frequency of a singer's vibrato,
or even the frequency of a speaking voice, that
affects people physically and I think it's just kind
of hit-or-miss. It's just a strange theory of mine."

Rooney's interpretation of the role of Lucy is that
he's a "gender opportunist". He feels that "when
someone perceives him as female, and it's to his
advantage, then that's what he'll go with; and vice
versa if he is perceived as male. Obviously Mac
perceives him as female, so Lucy exploits that
perception as much as he can, and manipulates Mac in
return. It's obviously a dysfunctional relationship
but in the context of the play it's somewhat romantic
in a comic way." The original design had Rooney
wearing very high platform shoes, but because of the
actor's height, he was easily a foot taller than the
rest of the cast when he wore them. It became a
distraction and now he wears patent leather combat
boots, "which makes more sense, because it's a rather
'goth' take on the character and he's a bit of an
anarchist in a way and acts like he doesn't care what
people think, even though he desperately does," adds the actor with a grin. "His tough and aggressive
behavior is a survival technique, because he's been
used by so many people his whole life."

About Author

Joe Panarello is one of those people who have most certainly been born with theater in their blood. As an actor, Joe has played such varied roles as Harry Roat in Frederick Knott's Wait Until Dark, Jimmy Smith in No, No Nanette and Lazer Wolf in Fiddler on the Roof a vehicle he's performed in several times and designed the sets for on one occasion. He's also directed productions of Thornton Wilder's Our Town, Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park and Henrich Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Joe is a respected author and although his latest work, The Authoritative History of Corduroy won't be published until this summer, it is already being translated into several different languages by a group of polyglot nuns in Tormento, Italy.. The proceeds from their labors will go to the restoration of the nearby Cathedral of Gorgonzola.